The Bono Regional Minister, Mrs Evelyn Kumi-Richardson, has charged
staff of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to strengthen their
operations at their respective border towns to stop criminals and
illegal foreigners from entering the country.

She said measures had to be adopted to stop foreigners from entering the country illegally to engage in criminal activities such as kidnapping, armed robbery, illegal lumbering and mining in addition to taking over retail businesses, which were solely meant for Ghanaians.

Mrs Kumi-Richardson, who was addressing staff of the GIS and Dormaa
Municipal Assembly as part of her familiarisation tour of the region,
said the vigilance of the GIS and citizens of the Dormaa Municipality,
which shared a border with La Cote d’Ivoire, could help avert the
illegal entry of criminals into the country through the area.

She was also unhappy about illegal lumbering in the area, explaining
that such was undermining development and appealed to the public to use
the right channels to harvest lumber in the various forest reserves.

Mrs Kumi-Richardson challenged the staff of the various assemblies to work hard to generate more revenue to finance the various assembly development projects.

Tour

The minister and her deputy, Mr Siaka Stevens, both of whom assumed duty after the Bono East and Ahafo regions had been carved out of the erstwhile Brong Ahafo Region, embarked on the familiarisation tour to inspect ongoing projects in the region.

Their
tour last Monday took them to the Dormaa Central Municipality and the
Dormaa East and Dormaa West districts, during which they inspected and
inaugurated some projects.

The projects inspected were the Dormaa-Ahenkro Youth Resource Centre, which is 85 per cent complete.

The centre consists of about 15 different facilities, including long
tennis courts, volleyball and football pitches and changing rooms.

Other projects inspected include a 1,000 tonnes grains warehouse and
ancillary structures, which was also 85 per cent complete, and a fully
furnished six-unit classroom block at Yawbofokrom, also in the Dormaa
Central Municipality.

In the Dormaa West Municipality, the minister inaugurated four
semi-detached staff bungalows for heads of decentralised departments of
the assembly and a fully furnished market.

The minister and her entourage also inspected the construction of the
Nkrankwanta District Police Station, which is expected to be handed
over to the police command next month.

Courtesy calls

As part of the tour, the minister and her entourage paid courtesy
calls on the various traditional councils to officially introduce
herself and thank them for their unflinching support during her
nomination and vetting. She also solicited their support in the running
of her administration.

Additional infrastructure

Responding to some of the concerns raised by the Krontihene of the
Dormaa Traditional Area, Barimah Ansu Agyei, the minister pledged to
ensure additional infrastructure for the University of Energy and
Natural Resources (UENR) satellite campus at Dormaa-Ahenkro.

Mrs Kumi-Richardson also promised to construct a dormitory block for
the Dormaa Senior High School (SHS) to help facilitate learning and
teaching as there were limited infrastructure to cater for the huge
number of students, in addition to the expansion of infrastructure of
the Dormaa Presbyterian Hospital, the Wamfie Polyclinic and the
Nkrankwanta District Hospital to ensure quality health delivery.

She said it was part of the government’s plan to rehabilitate the road network in the area to ensure smooth transportation of farm produce to market centres.

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